Ronan Lyons

Ronan Lyons, professor and housing economist, offers sharp analysis of Ireland’s housing challenges. He talks about making housing boring again, the affordability–viability–efficiency triangle, and why household formation matters. They debate tax levers, apartment costs, land-use rules, planning uncertainty, and practical steps like reducing build costs and reforming zoning to match how people live today.

Ronan Lyons, a Trinity College economist focused on housing supply and affordability, explains why modern housing is 'brittle' rather than a classic bubble. He talks about shortages and wrong-sized homes, why prices hide quantity problems, the rise in young people stuck sharing or living with parents, and how planning, land rules and demographics have created a systemic shortfall.

Ronan Lyons, professor of economics and housing expert, explains how decades of reasonable decisions produced a dysfunctional housing system. He discusses population booms, tax incentives that favoured rural sprawl, resistance to apartments, and how jobs urbanised without housing following. The conversation traces path dependence and why the crisis started long before 2008.